Music, of course--from Frohberger and Haydn to Mendelssohn, Wagner,
Raff, and Debussy--abounds in examples of natural imagery. In claiming
a certain excellence for his method one need scarcely imply that
MacDowell has ever threatened the supremacy of such things as the
"Rheingold" prelude or the "Walküre" fire music. It is as much by
reason of his choice of subjects as because of the peculiar vividness
and felicity of his expression, that he occupies so single a place
among tone-poets of the external world. He has never attempted such
vast frescoes as Wagner delighted to paint. Of his descriptive music
by far the greater part is written for the piano; so that, at the
start, a very definite limitation is imposed upon magnitude of plan.
You cannot suggest on the piano, with any adequacy of effect, a
mountain-side in flames, or the prismatic arch of a rainbow, or the
towering architecture of cloud forms; so MacDowell has confined
himself within the bounds of such canvases as he paints upon in his
"Four Little Poems" ("The Eagle," "The Brook," "Moonshine," "Winter"),
in his first orchestral suite, and in the inimitable "Woodland
Sketches" and "Sea Pieces." Thus his themes are starlight, a
water-lily, will o' the wisps, a deserted farm, a wild rose, the
sea-spell, deep woods, an old garden. As a fair exemplification of his
practice, consider, let me say, his "To a Water-lily," from the
"Woodland Sketches." It is difficult to recall anything in objective
tone-painting, for the piano or for the orchestra, conceived and
executed quite in the manner of this remarkable piece of lyrical
impressionism. Of all the composers who have essayed tonal
transcriptions of the phases of the outer world, I know of none who
has achieved such vividness and suggestiveness of effect with a
similar condensation. The form is small; but these pieces are no more
justly to be dismissed as mere "miniature work" than is Wordsworth's
"Daffodils," which they parallel in delicacy of perception, intensity